Gov. faces contempt of court charge if he fails to meet deadline

State needs to shed another 9,300 inmates

Gov. Jerry Brown faces a midnight deadline to submit his plan to the courts for reducing the state’s inmate population.

Brown already has trimmed 25,000 inmates from the prison ranks through his realignment plan, but federal judges have ruled California must remove another 9,300 prisoners to comply with a court-ordered population cap.

If Brown fails to comply by midnight, "they could put the governor in jail," said Floyd Feeney, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, whose expertise is in criminal justice.

Feeney told KCRA 3 it is unlikely Brown will be handcuffed and placed behind bars.

But, Feeney said, the courts have great powers.

"I grew up in the South," he said. "If you go back far enough, President (Dwight) Eisenhower sent troops to Arkansas to enforce a court order."

But the more likely scenario, Feeney told KCRA 3, is that Brown’s prison plan will be reviewed carefully by the courts.

"They will walk an extra mile to see if some kind of accommodation, some kind of solution, can be reached in this matter," Feeney said.

Last month, Brown attended a rally for crime victims on the west steps of the state Capitol and told reporters, "It’s not that the prisoners of California are not getting exquisite representation and solicitous care by the judiciary. And it’s not that we’re perfect, or that the state of California hasn’t made mistakes. It’s just that after spending billions, we are making progress."

On Thursday, prisoner advocates called for Brown to curb prison spending by reducing the number of people in state prisons.

Vanessa Nelson, of Life Support Alliance, told KCRA 3 the governor should streamline parole for lifetime offenders who are no longer dangerous.

“Many of them have been in prison for decades past their minimal average parole date," she said. "And they’re older, they’re aging, they’re expensive to house and they’re very safe."

Nelson’s sentiments were echoed by Jim Lindburg, of Friends Committee, a Quaker-based public advocacy group.

“We think there are too many people in prison," Lindburg said. "We think it makes absolutely no sense from a cost-benefit analysis to incarcerate so many elderly people."

But the prospect of releasing close to 10,000 inmates is a frightening prospect for many people.

At the state Capitol, Republican lawmakers sent a letter to Brown, urging him not to put public safety at risk.

"The options that we see in the short term are the contract beds that are still available. Use that and fill those up," Republican Assembly leader Connie Conway told KCRA 3.

In the letter, Republicans encouraged Brown to "repeal the provisions of last year’s budget trailer bill … which pulled back funding from the 2007 plan adopted in AB 900 that would have added 13,000 in-fill beds to current in-state facilities – without building another prison."

In-fill beds can be contracted with out-of-state or private in-state prisons.

"It’s an untenable situation, and I think our communities are very, very worried about this," Conway told KCRA 3.

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